If you asked your employees for a list of things that really piss them off, I’m sure they wouldn’t be shy in rattling off a few. But let me ask you – how many of these do you know about and how many of these physically and/or emotionally drive your employees away from your company?
This is what I talked about in my previous blog, where I shared three things that really piss off my 17 year-old daughter Chloe, who is new to the world of work.
In this blog I’ve added three more to the list, either from her or from others who’ve shared their ‘piss list’ with me. And since I’m a solutions-oriented person, I’ve listed my thoughts on what we can do to make sure they don’t happen.
1. Not being taken serious
In the first part of this blog series I said that appreciation is something we all crave and something that pisses us off if we don’t get it. I focused on recognition, which although important, doesn’t tell the whole story when it comes to feeling appreciated.
The second part of feeling appreciated is believing that we’re being taken serious for our contributions.
“We want to feel that we aren’t just being listened to, but that we’re being heard.”
We want to be heard for what we have to say, regardless of our age, our gender, our experience, or anything else that makes others feel that we don’t deserve to be taken seriously.
The solution is to start with the premise that we all have something valuable to contribute, and not to dismiss or rule out anyone’s opinions. I know it sounds obvious, but I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had this happen to me, with my ideas being dismissed or someone else taking credit for it, or have seen it happening to others.
Create an environment that encourages and supports this kind of culture, showing that anything else will not be tolerated. And remember, if you don’t, another company will, and you’ll lose your employees to them.
2. Having to live with crap processes
Face it, we all live in a world where we have to follow or manage crap processes. But let me ask you a question – why? Why should we settle for this?
In talking to Chloe, she cited many examples of crap processes that she had to follow in her first job, which ended up being one of the key reasons she left. Why put up with something that makes no sense and makes it difficult, if not impossible, to do a good job?
The solution to this is to take a step back and take the time to examine your processes. Sometimes we’ve been doing them for so long that we’ve learned to just live with them, so bring in people who are new to them or even not involved, and have them help you re-shape and deliver a more effective and engaging process. Don’t let crap processes force your employees to leave you!
3. Creating bogus goals
This last one came from someone who wrote to me and will remain anonymous. They told me that the thing that pisses them off the most is when their manager creates bogus goals at the end of the year, doing so just so they have something to ‘evaluate’ their performance on.
I put the word evaluate in quotes, for we all know that there is no way to truly evaluate performance when the goal hasn’t even been known by the employee. It would be like me showing up to run a half marathon and on the day of the race being told that you have to run a marathon. Really? How do you expect this to happen?
The solution to this one is simple – create and agree goals at the start of the year, discuss and change them throughout the year, and evaluate based on these. Nothing else is acceptable, ever!
So that’s it from me, I wish you all the best in engaging your employees and not pissing them off!
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